Day 18: Too Much Cookin', Not Enough Bloggin'

Whew! The past few days have been biz-zay. On Saturday, Dara and I threw a very excellent (if I do say so myself) barbecue, complete with beautiful weather, pleasantly drunk people, and lots of good food and fun. I learned how to make baked beans. I also learned...

• that beans take a loooong time to cook.
• that they're worth the wait.
• that, if you think starting with two POUNDS of dried beans is excessive, you're probably right.
• that people really like baked beans.
• that I actually like baked beans more than I thought!

Yesterday, the weather turned cold and rainy. Such a gray May day (yup) seemed perfect for lentils, since they're all warm and homey. I followed this recipe from Epicurious, though I left out the lamb. Thanks to Dara for all the documentation!

I had to work hard to chop the carrots, onions, and celery:


Seriously, do you own a food processor yet? No? Go get one. Go now. I don't care if it's midnight; Amazon is open 24 hours a day. Never mind the fact that it can chop anything and everything in mere seconds - you can make cookie dough in this thing!

So yeah. "I" chopped all the veggies. Then I checked the recipe, and my documentarian went to the fridge for a beverage:




How is it that we threw a party and ended up with more beer than when we started? We need less generous (or harder-drinking) friends.

Where was I? Oh yeah. I started sauteing the veggies, then, after a few minutes, added the lentils and a cup of wine:



After that, the lentils cooked slowly, sort of like risotto - a ladleful of liquid at a time. It was fairly slow going, since lentils, like beans, take a long time to absorb liquid and come to the right texure. In the end, we had a nice, tasty dish; the taste of the wine made it particularly rich. Dara ate hers with sauteed spinach, and I had mine over raw spinach with some feta mixed in:


And everyone was happy: